We Might As Well Just
by lookingforgrowth
Summary: Killian Jones has it bad for his schoolmate-turned-close friend, Emma Swan. As of late, Emma's been showing a bit of interest in return. He knows it's nothing more to her than physical, and why should it be? She's got a boyfriend anyway. (Modern AU one-shot I posted for CS AU week. Based by the 1975's 'Sex.' Soft M)


**We might as well just…**

They meet for the first time his sophomore year at Temple University. He's studying Marine Biology. She's majoring in Communications(because she never thought college was an option anyway, and public speaking gives her a confidence boost). He feels like he's underwater the first time she speaks to him.

She's effervescent, from golden locks to emerald eyes that make him think of yellow brick roads on the way to meet the wizard. And he needs a fucking wizard to get her to think he's more than some weird biology major with no friends.

He has friends.

He also has a shy side that comes out in the face of beauty. She's remarkable so consider him speechless every time he gets a glimpse of her angel face in Biology.

The fourth week into the semester and her lab partner drops. 'Good riddance' he thinks of the brunette too obsessed with their 'handsome' professor to stop asking questions when he's only trying to learn what the blonde beside her likes for breakfast.

She's beautiful, yes, but she's also damn sexy and a man as young as him has a healthy libido.

She gets partnered with him the next lab. The spark flares, but he's too shy to ask her out just yet.

The semester ends and he only finds out about her boyfriend the day of the final, when he found the courage to ask her out.

She says she wants to stay in touch, that she hopes their classes intertwine again because he's too smart for her to not utilize.

He doesn't want to believe her, hope breeds eternal misery.

Besides, she's got a boyfriend, anyway.

-/-

They're two more semesters in. His birthday was last week, hers the month before. The fake id's are no longer necessary and his band is legally playing venues all over New York on the weekends. She occasionally rides up with him to see her 'Broadway Boyfriend' Walsh.

Tonight is the first night she's ever gonna see 'Black Sails' play a gig in the year and a half they've been friends.

(He's seen three of Walsh's plays, but who's counting anyway?)

(He is. Not the plays but the number of arguments she's had in the last week alone with this guy.)

Killian isn't too keen on Emma dating Walsh. The guy was too into himself, too needy when the time arises, too distant when Emma needed him. He's walked in on her fighting over the phone too many times for Killian to look the guy in the eye and still smile.

Emma thinks it's jealousy, and maybe a part of it is; he's man enough to admit he pines after her so hard he loses sleep. Still, a jealous heart doesn't mean Walsh is a good guy, nor good for Emma. He knows guys in that industry are usually screwing at least two of their costars, per show.

Emma believes he isn't ' _and so what if he is?_ ' She argued back one night after too many drinks and not enough filter. _'Why should I care, I_ _'_ _m here and he's there and maybe he gets lonely?'_

' _Maybe you get lonely, too.'_ Was all he could reply before he regained his self-control.

She's evasive tonight about him. She was sitting in the audience the entire set and she never took her eyes off Killian. Walsh never showed his face, but once Killian walked out from back stage, Emma was no where to be found.

He sends her a text around midnight

He's sitting at the bar with his band mates, awaiting some response before he had the signal to pack in the equipment. He walks around back to unlock his van when he finds her perched against it, eyes red and lower lip trembling.

He calls her name, all concern and care and she daunts a smile like nothing bad has ever happened to her.

She falls into him like a wave crashing on shore and he's consumed by how good she feels in his arms. Her nose is drawing circles on his collarbone and he knows he's in love now. Up until this point she's been a friend he's tried desperately not to long for.

Now she's a break up away from being the love of his life.

She's not replying to a single 'what's wrong' but instead making conversation on how good the set was. He knows she knows she can talk to him about anything.

"Talk to me." He's pleading at this point. She looks so fragile when she tugs away from him, but she won't break down in front of anyone. He knows that by now. She can bitch and moan over beers but to let someone see her sad is unheard of.

It takes him a moment to realize she's swiped his keys and is now unlocking the van herself, swinging the back doors open and crawling inside.

"Emma?"

"Killian, ten minutes."

"I'm not sure I have ten minutes, Love?"

She decides to ride with him, sit pretty in the driver's seat as they load the van full of band equipment. They drop it off in the storage uptown and he asks if she has somewhere to be. The dimming of her eyes when she shakes her head makes his heart weak. He only wants her to be with him anyhow.

"Stay with me?" He suggests when the bandmates drive away from the empty alley of their storage facility. It's dark and bitterly cold. He wants to get them to their destination but the way she nods leaves a glint in her eyes and she retires to the back of his van once again.

He follows this time, shutting the door behind them.

"Lass, you know I've had my fair share of failed relationships."

"Killian, one day you'll learn we're nothing like each other." Emma sighs like she's so much better…

…or, so much worse.

"Sure" is all he can manage before his insecurities get the best of him and he starts to move toward the driver's seat. She stops him with a strong hand on his forearm and a pleading look in her eyes that weakens the rest of him.

"Make out with me." She blurts it out like acid in her mouth and he tries not to get burned by the hope this time.

"Emma?"

"I'm…I have a boyfriend, but he's shit and you're here." He's never seen her eyes this wide before. He can see all the little gold flecks clear as day in the moonlight lingering through the van's front window. "I just want to feel wanted, I know you'll do that for me."

"Aye, I can do that for you." He doesn't let her gaze fall from his for a second. "If you're quite certain?"

"Too certain." She replies.

It's an awkward beginning. She takes her shoes off first, black and white hightop's with the laces rarely tied. He keeps his on. He has a thing about his feet anyhow and he wants another barrier to keep him from getting carried away.

It's just lust, after all. Desperate lust and she doesn't want to be with him.

Her jacket is off before he has a chance to sit down beside her. He was never wearing one so they're even for what it's worth.

They'll never be even.

She's the bloody sun goddess and he deems himself a commoner bathing in her rays. Her rays look so damn good as she pulls her shirt off.

"Emma?"

"Killian, don't overthink it. I just need your hands all over me." Then she's all over him, on top of him, straddling his thighs as she tugs off his unbuttoned vest.

They've never kissed before, he's not sure how to start it. He's trying not to overthink but when the woman who's occupied your thoughts for the last 18 months decides you're worth a snog, it makes a man nervous.

So she takes the reins and lowers her lips to his. It starts slow enough for how quickly his heart is beating. It's a light brush of two lips against his own, followed by another longer press. He feels his heartbeat picking up, his blood rushing around through veins like some sort of Nascar circuit.

It takes the third go around to get him in gear and he takes control as soon as her mouth touches his. Before her hands were barely there, now he feels her fingernails raking through his cotton tee. She's showing her want when her mouth opens for him, and the whole idea of being in control is thrown out the window when their tongues meet.

His body is just reacting, honestly. He wraps his arms around her waist involuntarily and she's pressed so tight against him, it's a struggle to slide her hands from between two heaving chests. She figures it out though; and not too long after, the raking sensation returns at his scalp.

He finds it a bit silly how quickly he's grown hard under the circumstances, but she's grinding down on him every time he exhales and his want for her is 'solidified' by the third or fourth motion.

"Touch me."

She's pulled away abruptly and he misses the actual words. His heart misses a beat, but she speaks again…

"Killian, please just touch me"

…and now his heart's in overdrive.

He doesn't know how he can will his damn hands to stop shaking, but she's crawling off of him and he desperately needs for them to stop shaking. He looks like a goddamn ponce as he tugs his shirt off, shivering despite how heated his flesh must be.

She's laid down beside him, her jeans making their way past ankles before their eyes meet again. He doesn't want to ask her again but he fucking asks her again.

"You're sure?"

She nods.

"Because if you're not, Swan…"

Instead of a second nod, he gets legs spread wide with a thin strip of black lace she starts slowly pulling to the side.

He loses it. Completely batshit loses it. He's freaking out through every sense. He can see how wet she is, even in the darkness and he's losing it. His fingers twitch to touch her. His lips twitch to taste her but she didn't ask for that.

She's wearing lace for another man.

He wants to stop at that thought.

"Killian…" she's whining lowly and it's _his_ bloody name, so why should it matter?

He doesn't stop, and he quits hesitating, too.

She slides a finger through her own slickness, her other hand softly strokes at his torso, gliding down and around his side. She's wearing that lazy smile like it's a mere fuck between old friends.

It's everything.

He's lying beside her pressing soft, sweet kisses to her shoulder, to her neck before he ever touches her. She's moaning before he ever even touches her. She's wound up so tight from whatever happened tonight with her boyfriend.

So he releases her.

One second he's slipping a finger inside, the next she's thrusting up relentlessly as he leaves bruises all about her collar bone.

"Killian, kiss me."

"Where?"

He's much too breathy for having his pants still on, but she's Emma bloody Swan and there's little in this world that matters half as much to him as she.

"You'd…you'd do that, to me, you'd…"

"Of course." he sighs against her neck. That insecure tone of voice makes him hate her boyfriend even more. A woman like this deserves it all.

But she stills.

So he stills. And then he panics because he's done this enough times before to know how it ends with her. He always goes too far, says too much that sounds a lot like love. And he loves her, so go figure, right? Except she's not in love with him, she just needs him and he's here to deliver.

"S'that what you want, love?"

"Killian…" she sounds so small. He meets her eyes a second later, willing her to know he's only here for her.

"Anything you want, Emma."

"I… I have a boyfriend." She confesses. "just… just kiss me please."

So he kisses her, he makes her cum and he doesn't ask for anything else.

She's got a boyfriend anyway.

-/-

On the drive to his New York crash pad, she seems a lot more like herself.

She bitches and moans about the shitty sex she's been having with Walsh and it makes his skin crawl. It makes him wonder if she considers his feelings at all.

He was just rings-deep inside of her. He rubs his nose and smells her, but she thinks it's okay to talk about another bloke's piss-poor job at doing the same?

"He'd never go down on me" she says.

He grunts.

She doesn't get the message.

"He probably goes down on his costars, though."

That's when he realizes it's just for her. This talk is just to get her thoughts out and fuck how little she cares about his feelings, he needs to be more compassionate of hers.

"You got some sort of confirmation, then?"

"He called me back after my 30 missed tries, says the company is going out for drinks, no significant other's allowed." She's bitter, so fucking bitter, rightfully so. "There's a girl giggling in the background. Like, are you 10, who giggles at this age?"

But even bitter as she is, she's more beautiful than most girls could ever appear to him. She's burning him with all the talk of the boyfriend she won't just be rid of, but she's gorgeous enough he can't find it in him to be angry.

And it's not his place to be angry. She's his friend, that's all they've signed up for. This thing he did for her tonight, it was a favor, not a beginning.

She's got a boyfriend, anyway.

-/-

They arrive at the apartment almost 30 minutes later. It's the Upper East Side and everyone's pretty much dead by 3:00 am, so the doorman only waves with some unintelligible greeting. Emma doesn't ask, so he doesn't tell.

They reach his floor and walk all of five paces before they're at the front door. She asks then.

"You have keys?"

"Why wouldn't I have keys?"

"Do you… is this a family home? You never mention your family."

"You never ask."

"I'm asking now."

"I stay here when I'm in the city, Emma. It's not that big of a deal."

"It's the Upper East Side. It's a huge deal."

He doesn't want to tell her all the ways this place means nothing to him. He can't yet address how it's furnished but feels incredibly empty. He hates that he stays here so often, but Elsa keeps the fridge stocked for him and wants him to be safe when he's in the city.

She's afraid of losing more than she already has.

She's the only family he has. He's gonna respect his sister-in-law's wishes.

"My sister, Elsa, she owns the place but uses the Penthouse because she's got kids."

"You're an uncle?"

"To two. Elijah and Joanna. There are pictures on the mantle."

"And she kept this place for you?"

"Yes."

"But you chose to go to school in Philly?"

"You realize this is the most you've ever asked about me, don't you?"

"Killian…"

"It's a one-bedroom. Are you down to share?"

"I'm down for a lot of things." He opens the door and lets them both in before locking up. They move to separate sides of the room. He's dropping his backpack off and checking the fridge, she's searching the mantle for photographs.

"Who's this?"

It's a picture of Liam and the last thing he wants to do is mention Liam.

So he kisses her. Hard. Knocks the frame right out of her hand. She stumbles back against the couch and he lays her down gently, climbing over her before she has a chance to ask again.

It's touch and go for a second and he's certain he made an arse out of himself.

She pushes his chest up from hers and he knows he's made a royal arse out of himself.

"It's a one-bedroom, doesn't that imply a bed?"

He chuckles and kisses her again. She kisses back this time.

They end up in bed minutes later and he does what he wouldn't allow himself to in the van.

This time when she's asking for his lips on her, she wants them _everywhere_ and when he says something that sounds a lot like love, he gets rewarded.

They both cum this time, and spooning beside her feels a lot like love, too.

But it's not love. It's sex. She's got a boyfriend she loves, anyway.

-/-

She's absolutely mental.

She asks him with a sweet smile and free beer.

"One more play. It's short. We'll leave together, you and I."

He's not going to this git's show. He's spent the last week fucking his girlfriend, why one earth would he go to his show?

"Emma?"

"One show, if it gets weird, we'll leave at intermission."

"Why me?"

"You're my only friend." The confession strikes him as surprising.

Then the last 19 months flashes through his mind. She's never mentioned another name beside Walsh and her foster parents.

"Killian, one more show. Please."

He goes to the damn show. He quite enjoys the script, it's well-written. The female lead has a beautiful voice, Walsh is cast as the antagonist.

He wonders silently how many girls in the cast he's screwing.

She wonders the same aloud during intermission.

They don't stay for curtain call.

He fucks her in the car before they drive home.

He's certain her boyfriend's doing the same to someone else anyway.

-/-

They've been more than friends for a month now. It's Christmas break and Emma's supposed to be going home Tomorrow.

They're on the bed in his room back in Philly. The drive to Boston sounds tempting enough, but she's only jesting when she says 'I wish it were you coming with me.'

They've never talked about what this is to her.

He knows what it is to him. It's everything.

She gets off more often than he, but he loves every second he's touching her, so it's a win-win.

Except for moments like these where he obviously loses.

"My mom loves him. Thinks he's so talented."

"You don't agree?"

"I think you're more talented."

"I'm in a band. That's apples to oranges, love."

She smiles weakly. He won't even attempt to hide his discontent.

"Do you want to… I mean, I'm leaving tomorrow for the next two weeks. If you want to…"

"I'd rather not." He confesses. Her eyes widen before she looks away.

The silence between them hurts his heart, but so does talking about her bloody boyfriend every spare moment they have together.

How much of a turn-on does she think that is?

"I should go." She rises from the bed but he holds her by her hand, willing her silently to meet his eyes. "Why should I stay?"

"Because we're friends?" He can't help the hurt in his tone. She's using him. Not like one would use someone when they need something. No, that's one thing.

She's using him like a drug. She gets sad, she gets her fix, she gets over it. She's afraid she can't get high for the next two weeks without him.

He's afraid he'll live his life without ever truly having her.

"Killian…" she's tilting her head and staring at him with pity and all the hurt starts to burn him, singe him in places he's kept cool until now.

"Does he take care of you Emma?"

"What?"

"Does he bloody well take care of you? Does he do anything for you?" His voice might be raised. He's angry now.

"That's not actually your business, Jones." She argues back.

"No, I suppose not." He chuckles, dryly. "How poorly he fucks you, however, seems to be all my business, though"

"What are you getting at here? Are you asking if he pays for my things or if he… if he what?"

"If he makes you happy? If you feel safe with him?"

"You already know the answer." she spits, snatching her hand from his. She's angry and usually he'd give it to her, it's her emotion and she wears it well.

Except he's angry, too.

"Then why not me? Why don't you let me?"

"No." She hardly whispers and he has to stop himself from asking her what the fuck she actually just said. "No." It's a bit stronger now and he has to stop himself from asking himself why the fuck he's still actually sitting here.

"Okay, you just keep letting me fuck you, then." He rises from the bed and storms out of his own damn room and his own damn house.

He won't be left again. Especially not by a girl whose got a boyfriend anyway.

-/-

She finds him at the bar his roommate, Will Scarlet, works at. She probably called him direct to ask the whereabouts and the ponce 'fessed up.

He's sitting in a booth by the backdoor, drowning in ale when she slides across from him. She sets her feet on his lap, hightop's staring back at him, more than likely to keep him from moving away.

"Do you wanna take a drive?"

"I'm a bit pissed now, love. I've had a pint or four to meself."

"You're super British when you're drunk." She chuckles.

It's not the ale, it's the company. Scarlet always brings the young brit out of him when he's around.

"C'mon. I'll drive."

They're just outside of town when she stops the yellow deathtrap she insists is a car. He wants to vomit, but he'll resist the urge long enough to hear her out.

"My adoptive parents are only twelve years older than me."

Not exactly what he was expecting, but she never opens up about anything. He'll take what he can get.

"I was in Mary Margaret's class when I was 10. It was her first year teaching and we connected instantly because we're both outsiders. Four months into the school year, my foster parents at the time were sorta done."

"That's how it works?" He's still a little(lot) bit drunk so it comes out a little breathy and surprised.

"Yeah, that's how it works. I was about to be sent to the next town over when she and her husband went to my caseworker and asked if they could adopt me." She lets out a sad little laugh and it makes him hurt for her. "It's never that easy. It took months and a couple tears in a courtroom but they're my very young parents. I love them. They love me, but they're thirty and I'm in college and they can't really afford it. They haven't been saving since my birth to send me. She's a teacher and he works as a deputy in a small town, and they can't really afford it."

"Walsh can." It's not a difficult conclusion to draw.

"Walsh can…and he does. I just have to get through this last semester. I won't need him anymore after next semester." She turns to him with tearful, apologetic eyes and he just wants to kiss her happy. "…Killian please don't end whatever this is."

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Emma."

"And I don't want to hurt you either. You're not just… it's not just a fuck and whatever. I know it seems like that, but…"

"But?"

"Of course I have feelings for you. You're a really great guy and you make me laugh. You make me feel wanted. I know you could make me happy. I just…"

"What? You just what?" Because he just wants some straight fucking answers about where this thing is gonna go.

But she doesn't answer him. Instead she exits from her side of the car to walk around the front to his side. She swings his door open and drops to her knees.

"Swan?" she acts like she can't hear him though. Maybe the blood rushes to her head the same way it does him right before they've exposed themselves.

Her hands on his zipper now and he hardens in response. He's not a bloody adolescent but she triggers him like one with the simplest of movements.

"Emma?"

She looks up at him with doe-like eyes, all wide and wonderful and…

She's already handling his merchandise when he realizes that this is her form of an apology.

"For fucksake,Emma" He groans when she takes him in his mouth, hollowed out cheeks and light, light scraps from teeth around the base. He's tempted to let her continue, but he doesn't want a wordless apology like this. Not when this is what they're fighting over anyhow.

"Love… It's not that I want to stop you, but…"

"But?" It's following a loud 'pop' from the suction of her lips being broken. She's playful like they never fought. Like her confessing fixes everything.

She's still not his and that drives him up a fucking wall.

"But if we're gonna do this, we might as well just fuck." He's blunt and it sickens him but it has to be said.

Because that's all this is to her.

"Is that all I am to you?" He wants to curse out at her audacity.

"Hey Kettle, it's me, Pot." The angry words feel slimy leaving his throat, but he can't help but talk to her like this when she's unnerving him with every hypocritical word.

"I just told you I have feelings for you, Jack ass." She's quick to her feet as she walks off from the parked car into the dark night.

He's tempted to let her run off. She's got a boyfriend anyway.

-/-

She finally stops walking and turns around when he's inches from her. He collides into her but she steadies them both.

"You're still drunk?"

"No." he shakes his head and pretends he's only dizzy from the darkness.

"So you're naturally that much of an ass?"

"You tell me."

The standoff between them makes his gut churn. This girl gives him more ailments than drinking ever could, but he can't quit her anymore than she can quit him.

"I didn't lock your bucket." He smiles ignorantly. "Some hitchhiker is bound to run off with it."

"You hurt me." She's not buying his bullshit.

"Yeah, well you hurt me, too." because quite frankly, he's done with hers. "I want you Emma, I want you so much it keeps me up at night, but I'm not going to have you like this anymore."

"I asked you not to end this." She whimpers. He knows the tears are coming and if he sees them fall, he'll probably lose it right here in the middle of no where.

"This?" He gestures between them and even the action makes it clear how done they are. "This is nothing but sexual favors between visits with your boyfriend. We don't even talk like friends anymore. This is unhealthy and cruel."

"So what now?"

"Now I walk you back to your car, tomorrow you go home for Christmas break… and if you ever break up with Walsh…"

"Killian?" The tears hit her cheeks and the sob in her voice makes him want to just fucking die. She deserves better and now he's much worse. "No." she's whining and stomping her foot like she's five. She's frustrated and sad and she doesn't want to end this anymore than he does…

…but she doesn't want him enough to just end it with Walsh.

She's not his and if she really wanted to be, if she really wanted him, she would be. But she's not. She's got a boyfriend.

-/-

Anyway he tosses or turns he finds himself thinking of her every night over break. He spent the two weeks in the city with Elsa and the kids. They visit Liam's grave twice this time and he wants to ask his brother's advice more than anything.

Instead he asks his sister-in-law's. She gives it to him straight, no chaser. No bullshit.

That was her advice.

"No bullshit."

He tells her that he hasn't been giving any but it's somehow not good enough.

"You've walked away twice already?"

"I took a walk the first time." He corrects which earns him a smack to the back of the head.

"Be straight with her."

"How much straighter can I get, I ended it."

"Tell her you love her."

"She'll run"

"Is that any worse than how things are now?"

-/-

"I love you" is what the message he leaves on her voicemail says. "I love you Emma, more than I've ever loved anyone. I just can't stand sharing you."

He didn't know what else to say and now he doesn't know what else to do. He loves her. It's no bloody surprise to him. It wasn't some great revelation during the second week without her. It's been evident since they met.

She's had a boyfriend since they met.

-/-

And things are much worse. Because now his voice is out there and it's been another month.

She avoided him when she came back and this semester they have no classes together. He got bumped out of the one block he thought they'd meet. Now that class meets three hours later on the west side of campus and she's scheduled to be at a whole different location during that time.

He thinks he should just pound through this semester. Swear off women and get focused. He wants to graduate this May. After graduation he should be able to be with her, right?

Wrong.

He ended things and now she's never going to talk to him again but that's okay. She's got a boyfriend to fucking talk to anyway.

-/-

She comes by the bar. He hasn't drunk anything in the last four days. He just sits here because it's the last time he felt like she gave a damn about him. She came to him then and she's here now.

Not for him.

She's there with fucking Walsh. She's showing him about town. She once told him Walsh never comes to visit her.

A long list of lies they were. Their whole situation is just one buggering lie and it makes him weak.

"Oy. Swan. Killian's over there." Scarlet speaks and it makes him cringe. He wants to sneak out the back but the idiot roommate gives him away.

"Oh?" Walsh answers. "Emma, go get your friend. He can meet all the friends in the company." He sees her reluctancy, but God knows the lass doesn't like to look like the liar she's been.

Did she lie when she said she liked him?

"Killian?" She acts so jovial. He's been miserable for over a month.

"Emma." He speaks, no emotion, no giving way to the war between his ribs since they left it.

"Come drink with us." She should leave the acting to her boyfriend.

She's got a bloody fucking boyfriend.

"I could use a drink." He grins and it feels like he's being tarred and feathered when he rises and goes to stand near them.

He's about six shots in.

He hates the way she leans toward him.

He misses the way she use to be toward him.

He wonders if she ever heard the voicemail, if she even heard the desperation in his voice when he told her he loved her.

He hates the way she leans toward Walsh when he barely begins to lean in.

He takes another shot and his filter disintegrates within the alcohol.

"Did you get my voicemail?" He shouts over the music in his head.

"Killian?"

He can't actually hear her. No, just sees the way her lips are moving and he goes to move his lips over hers.

Somewhere in the midst of it, he gets Will fired when the idiot jumps in. The next morning begins with Scarlet quoting him.

"I'll take you all on any day." he mimics.

"You and your theatre friends—

I bet you've all got boyfriends—

The whole lot of you 'ol geezers—

What are you all, forty, with your backcombs?—

Goddamn, ignorant gits." He mocks.

Scarlet looks awfully spritely in the morning for just having lost his job in a bar fight. He's a kind fellow, handing him a steak for the black eye Killian is now sporting.

"Honestly, mate, what were you thinking? She's got a boyfriend anyway."

-/-

It's almost graduation and he hasn't heard a peep from Emma. He's on the phone with Elsa, explaining that her tickets are in the mail. She has the nerve to say she's proud of him.

Liam would have had his arse for the crap he pulled with Emma.

Emma has his heart, though. He couldn't help but pull that crap when he's so lovestruck he could rightfully croak.

"Have you heard from her?" Elsa takes his silence as weakness. The sort of weakness he's only acquired after losing her.

"No."

"She graduates this semester, too, right?"

"I suppose."

"It's okay to hurt, Killian. It's not okay to wallow in the hurt."

He hears the words unspoken. _Some people have been through worse._ And he's not sure how Elsa survives when the love of her life is dead.

Emma's not dead. She's just dead-set on not seeing him.

He loves her. Why won't she bloody well see him?

"I'm not wallowing, and I won't hold tight to seeing her at graduation Elsa. I'm moving on, and she's got a boyfriend anyway."

-/-

She looks great in a cap and gown and her parents look happy as ever to see her in one.

He waits for Walsh to show up, but he never does. He waits for someone to ruin the picture of a smiling Swan, but the picture stays perfect.

Until he does. He walks up to them and the smile fades almost instantly.

"Emma?" He didn't realize Elsa is right beside him until her voice rings out. "Oh, it's so good to finally meet you, I've heard tons." Elsa is pulling out the 'mom' card and Emma falls for it almost as fast as her adopted mother does.

"Oh, are you a friend of Emma's?" The woman with bright jade eyes and a wholesome smile asks. Elsa nods eagerly, extending her hand like the Queen.

"Killian is. I'm Elsa."

"Mary Margaret and this is my husband David."

"Elsa?" Emma's first words to him are about his sister-in-law and her voice almost sounds…jealous.

"My sister-in-law." Killian nods.

"Oh, where's your brother?"

Elsa asks him in private that night how on Earth he could be in love with a woman who has no inkling of his family history.

His only answer is 'why tell her all about me, I was never important'

They left shortly after Emma's question, not wanting to disclose much about Liam or his passing. He's just an old friend, he was never important. She had a boyfriend.

-/-

It's been a summer since they last saw each other. He has a biology internship in Maine he takes the first week of fall.

It's been a summer, but he never forgets a face. He's walking through a grocery store when he runs into Emma's mother. She's bubbly and apologetic, but not forgetful in the slightest.

"I never found out what happened to your brother"

"Who said anything happened?"

"The sad look you shared with your sister."

She has the same 'no bullshit' look on her face Emma wears.

"He died in 9/11. He was a first responder." Killian moves around her then, searching the shelves for canned soup. Maine Winters are colder than Philly and New York together. He likes to warm up.

"And she finished raising you?"

"I was pretty much raised." He shrugs. He's still not fully raised. Elsa schools him on everything from laundry to relationships and he owes her his life.

"Emma said you two shared something, things had gotten 'weird?'"

"I was in love with her. She had a boyfriend."

-/-

She calls him that night.

He breaks down on the phone.

The sound of her voice sends him through hell and heaven at the same time.

Before she ends the call, she mentions she's no longer got a boyfriend.

-/-

They meet for lunch that week.

He has a weird way of telling her he's still crazy about her. It's a slight kiss on the lips, followed by pressing her against the side of a building when she admits the same thing.

It snowballs from there.

She's staying with her parents exactly 33 minutes away from where he's staying. He makes the drive every other night. She tells him not to, that they can wait until weekends. He works so early in the morning.

He asks her to move in then. That they can make the drive to visit her parents on weekends, that he would go even further if that's what she needed.

She tells him she needed him. She has since they met. The months they spent apart and distant only clarified that. She tried clinging to Walsh, but her heart was taken by another.

He waits for her to say it.

She says it the night she moves in. They're sitting on the couch going over a grocery list because she hates canned soup and her mother taught her a few good recipes.

He says he loves clam chowder.

She says she loves him.

She finds a job down the street from his. It's not in her field, but communications is a bit relative. She could do anything and find herself using her degree.

She uses it a couple of months later when his internship ends. She communicates wanting to relocate back to the town her parents are in. She has a job lined up with the sheriff's department now that her father has been promoted.

She explains that marine life in Storybrooke is just as exciting.

He communicates his willingness through other activities that night.

Walsh strolls through town a month or two after they've settled in. He asks to take Emma out for lunch and Killian has a vivid flashback of the bar fight they were in. He thinks he may have won, but warns Emma he's up for a rematch anytime.

Emma tells him he's got nothing to worry about. She has nothing to say to Walsh. Things ended bitterly. Besides, what the hell does she look like talking to him?

She's got a boyfriend, anyway.


End file.
